The success of Motown Records during the 1960s and 1970s garnered a level of attention in mainstream society that was previously unthinkable for a company that specialized in black cultural forms. One of the curious aspects of Motown’s legacy is ways in which historians, critics, and musicians alike commonly cite a generic Motown style, or “Motown Sound.” Join Assistant Professor of Music Andy Flory as he presents “The Motown Sound”. He will discuss Motown’s famous “sound” from a number of vantage points, including marketing and self-categorization, musical tropes, and self-dialogue. In this presentation, he will show the parameters through which the agents involved in the creative process, the physical spaces of the Motown “campus” on West Grand Boulevard in Detroit, and the vertical (and not-so-vertical) integration of writing, arranging, performing, and recording contributed to a musical uniformity in select areas of Motown’s output during the company’s most productive period.

ANDREW FLORY(American Music, Music History) received the B.A. from the City College of New York and the M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Andrew teaches courses in American music, focusing on rock, rhythm and blues, and jazz. Andrew was a member of the Royster Society and was awarded the John Motley Morehead Fellowship to complete his dissertation, which was awarded the Glen Haydon Award for Outstanding Dissertation in Musicology from the UNC Music Department. . He has written extensively about American rhythm and blues, and is an expert on the music of Motown. His book, I Hear a Symphony: Listening to the Music of Motown, is forthcoming from The University of Michigan Press. Working directly with Universal Records, Andrew has served as consultant for several recent Motown reissues. He is also co-author of the history of rock textbook What’s that Sound (W.W. Norton).

OnFebruary 11, 2013, Pope Benedict XVI surprised the world when he announced his plans to abdicate from his position as pope, leader of the Roman Catholic Church. Although he is not the first to do so, a papal abdication has not occurred since Pope Gregory XII in 1415, almost 600 years. In this Carleton Connects presentation, "Uncharted Waters or a Remembrance of Things Past? Medieval Perspectives on Papal Abdication", Associate Professor of History Bill North offers a historical vantage point from which to consider these recent events. Please join us as he explores the reactions and reflections of medieval observers as they tried to make sense of the first time the vicar of St Peter handed back the keys.

Professor North came to Carleton in 1999 as a medieval historian. In addition to being an Associate Professor of History, he is also the Co-director of the Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program (MARS) and Coordinator of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program. He offers a wide variety of seminar and survey courses in European Studies and History. He has a strong command of Latin and medieval and classical Greek. Fluent in Italian, he is also comfortable with French, German and Spanish. He has included a number of his translations as source materials for students to refer to on his MARS website.

The largest territory in the world under Al Qaeda's control is currently the northern half of Mali, West Africa. Yet as recently as last winter, Mali was considered a paragon of democratic governance in the region and the host of a regular Carleton study abroad program. Join Bruce Whitehouse '93, anthropologist at Lehigh University, for a presentation entitled "Mali's Trajectory from Donor Darling to Failed State," and a discussion of what Mali's crisis means for the rest of the world. He will be joined for a Q&A session with Carleton Professor Cherif Keita, Department of French and Francophone Studies.

Bruce Whitehouse is a cultural anthropologist with interests in migration, development, marriage, demography, Islam and sub-Saharan Africa. Since the early 1990s he has spent more than five years in Africa, working in or traveling to a dozen sub-Saharan countries. Most of his fieldwork concerns populations living in or emanating from the western Sahel region, particularly the country of Mali. This part of the world offers fascinating perspectives not only on the diversity of human societies but on global processes of economic and cultural transformation. In hisresearch he has sought to illuminate some of the ways Africans carve out spaces for themselves in the contemporary globalized world.

Chérif Keita is Professor of French and Francophone Studies (Ph.D., University of Georgia). He teaches Francophone Literature of Africa and the Caribbean, as well as advanced languages courses. A native of Mali, he has published books and articles on both social and literary problems in contemporary Africa. His special interests include the novel and social evolution in Mali, Oral tradition, and the relationship between music, literature and culture in Africa. . “Cemetery Stories: A Rebel Missionary in South Africa”, his second documentary traces the relationship between John Dube and a Northfield missionary family who mentored him and educated him in the United States. Professor Keïta also leads a Carleton Francophone off-campus studies program to Mali every other year.

While many people use social media in their daily lives, have you ever considered using it to spark a revolution? Join Carleton Connects for Professor Devashree Gupta's presentation"Meet Me Atthe Corner of Facebook and Twitter: Social Movements and Protest in theDigital Era." She will focus on the role that "Internet 2.0" -- social media in particular -- playin mobilizing activists and staging protests. Using examples,including the Arab Spring uprisings and the "hacktivism" of groupslike Anonymous, she will map out some of the different ways in which the internetcan play a role in protest, talk about ways in which this relationshipbetween virtual activism and activism in the physical world is evolving, andidentify some of the challenges that emerge when protest goes online, whollyor in part. She will be joined by Ed Bice '88, founder and CEO of Meedan, an online English-Arabic news-sharing forum that played a major role during the Egyptian revolution of 2011. He will provide comments and answer questions during the Q&A.

Professor Devashree Gupta teaches in the Department of Political Science. She received her PhD in Government from Cornell University. Her research focuses on issues of nationalism, social movements and protest, and political extremism, with a particular focus on the politics of Britain, Ireland, and South Africa. She has published her work in Mobilization,PS: Political Science & Politics, Comparative Politics, and Comparative European Politics. She is currently working on a book manuscript that explores the dynamics of radicalization and competition in nationalist movements as well as smaller projects on social movement coalitions as well as the political engagement of diaspora and immigrant communities in Europe. She teaches the introductory class in comparative politics as well as courses on social movements, comparative nationalism, ethnic conflict, religion and politics, and research methods. Prof. Gupta is the coordinator of the international relations track.

Ed Bice '88 is Meedan’s founding CEO. A co-chair of the U.S.-Palestinian Partnership (UPP) and the Middle East Strategy Group, Ed has represented Meedan at enough global conferences to have tapped out his phones contact list capacity. He fervently believes that the diversity and openness of the internet is the key indicator of human progress. While he resists the label, having helped to guide Meedan’s successful transition to a technology design and development consultancy, Ed is sometimes tagged as a social entrepreneur. Joi Ito included Ed in his 2008 book Freesouls, portraits of 296 people working to build the open web. Ed holds a US patent on hybrid human and machine translation and has been published in national press including the NY Times, New Republic, and Mother Jones, and has been interviewed on national and international radio news programs like NPR, BBC, and CBS. He attended Carleton College where he received a B.A. in philosophy. When he is not editing staff bios and sending emails, Ed folds laundry and cooks with garlic in Woodacre, California.

Have you ever wondered how astronomers take such beautiful pictures of the night sky? Are you interested in the mechanics of how those pictures are taken? Do you ever wonder just what you are seeing as you stare up into the cosmos? Join Carleton Connects for Professor Cindy Blaha's presentation, "Visual Astronomy: There's More Than Meets The Eye". Professor Blaha will take us on a tour through the December skies using images taken at Carleton in Goodsell Obesrvatory and beyond. She will also discuss how astronomers create images of the moon and other cosmic entities as well as the science behind it.

Professor Cindy Blaha teaches in the Department of Physics and Astronomy where she is the Marjorie Crabb Grabisch Professor of the Liberal Arts. She is an astrophysicist interested in the optical and radio properties of star formation and evolution in the disks and nuclei of spiral galaxies.

Missed Carleton Connects: Vice President and Treasurer Fred Rogers '72? You can experience it here!

The cost of higher education and concern about student debt levels have featured prominently in the media this year. A recent national tuition and student aid survey offers brighter news: in 2012-13, tuition and fees at private colleges and universities increased an average of 3.9 percent – the lowest rate in at least 40 years – while institutional student aid increased 6.2 percent. While the financial challenges facing students and their families are still very real, this is encouraging news. Keeping institutional costs down and ensuring affordability for students from all backgrounds, while providing a world-class education is a key priority for Carleton and at the heart of our strategic plan. Join Carleton Connects as Carleton’s Vice President and Treasurer, Fred Rogers '72 discusses how the College is addressing these challenges and offer insights about Carleton’s future.

With two weeks to go before the November election, John Harris '85 offered a scoop on the year's big issues during the panel presentation "The 2012 Presidential Election: What's Happening and Why." Politico cofounder and editor-in-chief John Harris '85, Alex Burns, national correspondent for Politico, and professor Steven Schier, our resident presidential expert and the Dorothy H. and Edward C. Congdon Professor of Political Science engaged in a lively discussion with Carleton alumni.

The Bald Spot. The Libe. Scrunching. Carleton is full of words that make sense to those who walk its grounds, but have you heard about one of our latest terms: VIZ? Join Carleton Connects as Professor Susan Jaret McKinstry presents “What is VIZ? Visualizing the Liberal Arts (VIZ) at Carleton." She will explore how this three year initiative has transformed teaching and learning across the college, and describe the interdisciplinary conference that Viz is hosting September 28-30, 2012 in the Weitz Center for Creativity.

Susan Jaret McKinstry is the Helen F. Lewis Professor of English at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, where she studied the history of the novel, women writers, and literary theory. She is co-director of an interdisciplinary campus initiative on visual teaching and learning, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (2009-12).

David Welna '80 has been the congressional correspondent for National Public Radio since the final days of the Clinton administration. He has covered a wide range of historic events and national issues, including the 2000 presidential election and the post-election vote count battle in Florida, the September 11, 2001 attacks, the wars that followed, and the economic downturn and recession. Prior to his current assignment, Welna spent 15 years reporting for NPR from overseas. The recipient of several prestigious awards, Welna has also reported for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, The Financial Times, and The Times of London. In addition, his photography has appeared in Esquire, The New York Times, Paris Review, and The Philadelphia Inquirer. The title of his presentation was "From Carleton to Covering Congress… An Odyssey on Deadline."

Missed the Carleton Connects: Professor David Liben-Nowell? You can experience it here!

As more and more of our day-to-day activities have moved online, we have begun to leave digital traces of decisions and preferences -- moods, friendships, preferences among potential dates -- that had previously been all but invisible. Join Professor David Liben-Nowell as he presents: "Tie game: Making connections with social networks". He will describe a few highlights of the emerging research area of computational social science and talk briefly about how current students are exploring this topic in the Carleton curriculum. At the end of the program, you will have the opportunity to ask your own questions.

Most scientists who study emotions focus on negative states: depression, anxiety, and fear. Psychologist Barbara Fredrickson '86 has spent more than twenty years investigating the relatively uncharted terrain of positive emotions, which she says can make us healthier and happier if we take time to cultivate them. Fredrickson’s findings are the subject of her book, Positivity. Though its title might make it sound like a self-help bestseller, the book doesn’t belong in the pop-psychology section, and Fredrickson is no Pollyanna telling us to put on a smile before leaving the house each morning. Negative emotions, she says, are necessary for us to flourish, and positive emotions are by nature subtle and fleeting; the secret is not to deny their transience but to find ways to increase their quantity. Rather than trying to eliminate negativity, she recommends we balance negative feelings with positive ones. Below a certain ratio of positive to negative, Fredrickson says, people get pulled into downward spirals, their behavior becomes rigid and predictable, and they begin to feel burdened and lifeless.

Fredrickson is the Kenan Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the director of the university's Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology Lab. A leading scholar within social psychology, affective science, and positive psychology, she and has received more than 10 consecutive years of research funding from the National Institute of Mental Health, and her research and teaching have been recognized with numerous honors. Her scientific contributions have influenced scholars and practitioners worldwide, in disciplines ranging from education to business and beyond. The title of her presentation was "What Good Is It to Feel Good?"

Missed the Carleton Connects: The Weitz Center for Creativity Webinar? You can experience it here! Director of the Arts Steve Richardson, Professor Greg Marfleet, and Professor Ruth Weiner discuss their plans and reactions to the newly opened Weitz Center for Creativity.

Missed Professor Hemesath's conference lecture? You can listen to it here! Professor Hemesath, Professor of Economics and current President of the Faculty, presents presents "European Budget Challenges: America's Future?"

Step back into the classroom with us, and check out this interactive lecture, part of the new Carleton Connects lecture series.

Missed Professor Grow's conference lecture? You can listen to it here! Professor Grow, the Frank B. Kellogg Professor of International Relations, presents "When (If) China Rules the World...What China's rise means for both the American economy and American foreign policy." He discusses China's current rise and the implications this has on the American economy and foreign policy.

Step back into the classroom with us, and check out this interactive lecture, part of the new Carleton Connects lecture series.